Chapter 613: The Opportunity in the Submerged Water

That Zhishou took a fancy to him was purely a coincidence, because the matter of learning musical instruments was not extended to the tenant farmer population; since food was not provided during the learning period, once a tenant farmer stopped working, they would have nothing to eat, and their future livelihood would become a problem, so those who participated in learning musical instruments were all children from families of the Intermediate class and above.

At the time, Zhishou was merely strolling around various parts of Huaxia accompanied by a servant, because he felt that the scenery of Huaxia was truly inexhaustible, and every time he looked, he would make new discoveries.

While on the road, he heard someone using whistling sounds to imitate the calls of birds in the distant forest, so vividly that they could even harmonize with the real birds, which inevitably aroused his keen interest.

Although imitating the sounds of various animals is a necessary skill for every hunter, it is rare to be able to imitate bird calls perfectly, not to mention that the bird calls were coming from a very far distance and were very faint to Zhishou's ears, yet this person was able to distinguish and imitate every sound perfectly, even singing along with several birds at the same time.

Zhishou walked closer to take a look and saw it was Chenshui resting by the field; at this time there was not much farm work left to do, so even though Chenshui was employed by others, he still had enough time to rest.

Zhishou walked behind Chenshui without a sound, his footsteps extremely light, but Chenshui still discovered him at the first moment and turned his head quickly; after all, no one would walk straight behind someone else unless it was an acquaintance coming over to talk.

But what Chenshui saw was a completely unfamiliar old man, and his clothing was clean and did not look like the style of Huaxia clothing, with a person who looked like a Huaxia Slave following beside him. Combining this with the widely circulated and well-known events of the past few days in Huaxia, Chenshui immediately judged that this was some figure from the Xuanyuan Tribe, so he hurriedly stood up.

Zhishou was not too surprised, but still asked curiously: "Your ears are very sensitive; I hadn't even walked over yet, and you heard me."

Chenshui pointed to his own ears humbly and said: "My ears are just relatively sharp."

Zhishou pointed to a very distant place again: "I just heard you communicating with the birds in that place; why, are you like that person here, Changxu, Changxu, and make friends with birds?"

Chenshui did not know who Changxu was, because Changxu almost never appeared in the public eye, and the news among tenant farmers was relatively blocked, so it was impossible for him to know.

"No, no, I am just imitating those bird calls; however they call, I call back. I don't even know what those bird calls mean, anyway, I call and they can respond; I'm just resting and feeling a bit bored."

Zhishou nodded: "Then can you accurately distinguish the call of every kind of bird, as well as the differences in the pitch of their calls, and then accurately imitate them?"

Chenshui did not deny it, but he attributed it all to his own hearing: "It's just that my ears are useful and I listen carefully."

Zhishou then knew that this should be a person very suitable for learning musical instruments. He also knew the class structure of Huaxia; the person in front of him should be an ordinary farmer or tenant farmer, at any rate, not a Slave, so it should be possible to let him learn. So he asked: "What is your name?"

Seeing that this big shot had noticed him, Chenshui, although he did not know what the intention was—perhaps he had taken a fancy to his ears, or perhaps he just found it interesting—was very afraid that the Xuanyuan Tribe would trade him away to the Xuanyuan Tribe. In that way, the small life he had finally managed to settle down into might be gone, so he struggled for a long time and could not bring himself to say his name.

"Do you not have a name? But I heard that everyone in your Huaxia, even Slaves, has been given a name." Zhishou was somewhat puzzled; he did not understand why the person in front of him was like this.

Chenshui gathered his courage and asked: "This Leader, you are from the Xuanyuan Tribe, right?"

Now Zhishou began to be puzzled; what did this have to do with which tribe he belonged to? But he still answered truthfully: "I am not; I am just a Sage, but I am helping Xuanyuan build their tribe, and now I am staying in your Huaxia to teach the people of your Huaxia musical instruments."

Only then did Chenshui heave a sigh of relief. A Sage who was not too deeply involved with the Xuanyuan Tribe should not be able to drag him off to the Xuanyuan Tribe, so he said somewhat timidly: "My name is Chenshui, but may I ask, why do you care about the name of a lowly person like me? I do not want to go to the Xuanyuan Tribe; I only want to stay in Huaxia and farm."

Only then did Zhishou understand why the person in front of him was so hesitant. He could not help but laugh out loud and hurriedly explained: "No, no, I have no intention of taking you to the Xuanyuan Tribe. It is just that I see your hearing is sensitive and you are very meticulous about sounds, so you should be very suitable for learning musical instruments. That is why I asked for your name, to go back and find your King to see if he can arrange for you to come and learn musical instruments."

Chenshui was a smart person; he naturally knew what this meant. After all, he had previously been a great Leader of the Suiren clan and had also founded a tribe himself, having been a Tribal Chief for a period of time. It was just that his courage had been worn away, and he only wanted to live a stable life. But he knew even more clearly that the treatment of people who knew musical instruments in a tribe was very different from that of ordinary tribesmen. If this matter succeeded, his destiny might change again, so he hurriedly thanked Zhishou.

Zhishou did not linger any longer; after all, Chenshui still had to continue working, and he himself had to go back to Baifeng's youngest son after strolling around a bit more to perfect the method of recording musical scores.

That day, Zhishou also found Baifeng and told him about Chenshui. After a reminder from Yishang, Baifeng remembered that there was indeed such a person. Because he was currently useless to the Ministry of War and could only be a tenant farmer, since Zhishou said he had talent in this area, Baifeng agreed to Zhishou's request without hesitation. If this were true, then Zhishou would have found a buried talent for Huaxia.

Afterwards, Chenshui was also successfully brought into the musical instrument class to learn, but his status as a tenant farmer did not change. During this period of study, it was equivalent to the Ministry of Rites hiring him. If he could learn and master it, then he could immediately achieve a transformation of his status; if he did not learn it well, then he could only go back and continue farming.

Chenshui also understood the opportunity in this, and on the first day, he was more serious than anyone else. After all, others could have a relatively affluent life even without learning this; they were just doing it as a hobby, though the others were also learning quite seriously.

The notation method was not difficult. By creating a simple five-tone symbol and then marking the rising and falling tones, as well as some other symbols, simple musical scores could now be recorded. This kind of notation method could continue to be perfected in the future.